SpaceX, the private rocket firm helmed and in large part bankrolled by famous nerdwealth biz kingpin Elon Musk, has announced that its first attempt to send one of its Dragon capsules to the International Space Station will be further delayed.
The Dragon capsule with 'Draco' rockets in action. Credit: SpaceX Breathes fire - but …

Worries about pranging the ISS are one of the reasons the Dragon will not be allowed to dock with the ISS in the "normal" way.

What I believe the idea is that the Dragon on a trajectory which would miss the ISS but take it very close. The ISS will use its robot arm to grab the Dragon as it goes very very slowly past, then manipulate it into docking.

Cheesey story

"...he'd be happy to open up his books by making preparations for an IPO..."

That would be the worst thing SpaceX could do at this juncture...

I think one of the reasons that access to space is currently so expensive is because we rely too much on big, behemoth-esque, publicly-traded aerospace companies with inefficient labour structures, and whose shareholders demand cushy dividend payments. This forces an emphasis on market performance as opposed to engineering performance, with contracts written so governments are forced to pay millions (perhaps even billions) in contract cancellation fees when projects are cancelled before reaching their goals. All of these things combine to drive up the cost/unit mass to climb the gravity well.

The only way to make access to space affordable to the masses is to allow open-market competition, and to encourage companies to make engineering investments that deliver "keep-it-simple-stupid-we've-already-built-it-and-proven-it-works" products for sale.

IPOh No!

Taking SpaceX into the realm of publicly traded companies is most definitely a very bad idea, especially with Mars set firmly in Elon Musk's sights.

Publicly traded companies are run by board members who try to pad their wallets as much as possible, and shareholders scream for returns and dividends. Staying private means you can invest all your profits back into R&D, which in a business built around spaceflight is an EXTREMELY important thing. The more money you pump back to shareholders is less money spent developing the next engine or flight control system, or whatever.

And if SpaceX want's to be the first to set boots on Mars (which at this point in time, SpaceX has my bet that they WILL be the first), then once again, being private means you can build the thing, paid for by what isn't being used for R&D or what might be handed over to shareholders.

My hat is off to Elon for building the company to where it is, but it needs to stay the way it is or risk becoming a target for a hostile takeover and being absorbed by one of the existing overweight overly bureaucratic space industry incumbents.

No IP? How about half & half?

SpaceX, as Elon Musk's baby, is all about the R & D and pursuing Elon Musks vision of cheap, affordable access-to-orbit and space in general.

A public company would, as Robert says above, be all about chasing the profit in the short-term, even if that meant greatly slowing R&D for the future.

So...

How about Elon Musk setting up a Falcon 9 launch-provider company for satellites? IPO THAT and have them buy Falcon 9's (at good prices) from SpaceX. The Falcon 9 is cheaper than just about anything else and can do more LEO satellites so there's money to be made there. Have it written into the contract that if they make a profit on each launch of a Falcon 9 bigger than 120% the cost of buying it from SpaceX then SpaceX can compete with them (and undercut them) and offer launch services directly.